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His mouth, which she automatically noted was quite a nice shape, set itself into a thin, uncompromising line. The light grey eyes allowed themselves a humourless glint.
‘I doubt it,’ he returned, continuing to stare at her with a kind of fascinated horror.
Time, without doubt, to let Mr High and Mighty know exactly to whom he was speaking. Poppy set her own glossy mouth into a line which unconsciously imitated his own.
‘Do you realise to whom you’re speaking?’ she enquired archly, anticipating his discomfiture with glee, when his lazy reply completely threw her.
‘Certainly. The latest in a long line of extremely unsatisfactory temporary secretaries which have been dredged up by your agency, I imagine.’ He raised his very dark eyebrows and smiled. ‘Am I correct?’
Poppy had rarely in her life been speechless, but she was now. Surely he couldn’t be. . .?
‘But you don’t look a bit like a Professor!’ she protested, her long, pink-painted nails gripping on to the table for support.
The dark brows grew together in a frown, and the grey eyes glared. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked coldly.
Poppy laughed nervously. ‘You! You aren’t what I expected! When they said I’d be working for the Professor, I imagined someone much older.’
What had she said to offend him? The grey eyes were sending out sparks which could have ignited the desk.
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ he demanded.
‘How so?’ She was genuinely bewildered and she knew that her reply was casual and ungrammatical, but she was still trying to forget that this brute of a man wasn’t someone who had come to tamper with the central heating.
‘Who told you I was a Professor?’ he snapped.
For a moment Poppy wished she was back at Maxwells, handing out sapphire eye-shadow to corpulent women of sixty who should have known better. She tried a smile which used to melt the general floor manager’s heart.
‘The girl on the reception desk,’ she explained. ‘I asked her where I could find Dr Browne and she said “working for the Professor, are you?”’ Poppy’s lips clamped hastily shut, as she recalled the next comment, which had been ‘rather you than me!’ She began to get a good idea what the receptionist had meant! ‘Have I said something wrong?’ she asked, fixing her huge violet eyes on his face.
‘It’s a joke,’ he told her flatly.
‘Well, you’re hardly doubled up laughing yourself,’ she quipped, and was rewarded with a look which could have rivalled Medusa’s.
‘A poor joke.’ He pulled one of the textbooks on the desk towards him, glancing down at the open page before returning his gaze to her. ‘It dates from my days as a student—Miss——?’
‘Henderson,’ said Poppy helpfully. ‘But you can call me Poppy.’
‘Miss Henderson,’ he continued, ignoring her friendly overture. ‘Do you have much experience of hospitals, Miss Henderson?’
‘None, I’m afraid,’ she said brightly.
‘I thought not.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘Then allow me to enlighten you about some fairly typical behaviour. If, as a student, you tend to commit that awful sin of enjoying your work, and pursuing it with any degree of vigour, then you’re labelled a bore. Or a swot. I was known as the “Professor”.’
Poppy’s heart sank. Trust her to have revived some ancient and hated nickname!
‘If, on the other hand, you do as little work as possible, date every woman in your year, and are never to be seen without a glass of beer in your hand, you’ll win the admiration of your peers and be labelled a jolly good chap!’ The rather nicely shaped mouth twisted again, and Poppy tried, and failed, to imagine him in this second role.
Oh, well. It had been a good try, but poor old Miss Webb was going to have yet another temp leave—and this one was probably going to break the record for having been there the shortest time.
Grumpy seemed to have forgotten she was there—his attention had switched suddenly from moaning at her to scanning a page of the textbook he’d just moved, and muttering ‘mmm’ just as if he’d bitten into an unexpectedly delicious cake. Poppy began to hitch her bag over her shoulder, uncertain of how best to get out of there.
She cleared her throat, but he didn’t even look up. She coughed quietly, but still he took no notice, just carried on reading. The sooner she was out of there the better—the man was a lunatic!
‘Er—I suppose I’d better be going, Dr Browne.’
He looked at her then, and she got a good idea of how some poor unsuspecting mouse must feel before the cat pounces on it.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘I said I’d better be going now. I’m sorry if I appeared rude. . .’
‘Going?’ He slung the book down, and Poppy blinked with surprise to see ‘Fergus C. Browne’ on the front of it. ‘And just where do you think you’re going, Miss Henderson?’
‘Well, you won’t want me now, will you?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Not now that I’ve reminded you of what a rotten time you had as a student.’
And suddenly he laughed, showing superb white teeth. The relaxed movement affected his whole stance, so that for the briefest second he looked so—so gorgeous, there was no other way to describe it, that her heart did a funny little dance all on its own. There was even a twinkle in the forbidding eyes.
‘On the contrary, Miss Henderson,’ he drawled, ‘I had a very happy time as a student. Very happy indeed.’
And, witnessing this astonishing transformation, she could well believe it.
‘As for my “wanting” you,’ the smile had switched off more quickly than the Christmas tree lights on Twelfth Night, ‘what I want, and what I’ve been wanting for over fourteen months now, is a secretary who can type without making a mistake every other word. Someone who can be pleasant on the telephone, and helpful. Someone who will listen to what’s being asked of her. Someone who will not terrify or intimidate my patients. Someone who will not sniff, or sulk, or file her nails and look bored. Someone who will not attempt to engage me in what I believe is popularly known as “chit-chat”.
‘I don’t care what you’ve watched on television. I am not interested in soap operas, or the Royal Family. I want someone with more than two neurones to rub together.’ He watched her questioningly. ‘Do you think that what I’m asking is unreasonable, Miss Henderson?’
Poppy could hardly believe what she was hearing. What an insufferable pig! She remembered Miss Webb’s parting words, that on no account was she to let him bully her. Damn right, she wouldn’t!
She glowered at him. ‘Yes, I do! And more than that—it’s the most patronising thing I’ve ever heard!’
The watchful eyes grew thoughtful. ‘You think I’m exaggerating the tendencies of your predecessors?’
He was regarding her with interest, as though he actually cared about what she might think, and she felt her cheeks grow a little hot, irritatingly flustered by this quirky individual.
‘They probably did do some of those things—if not all of them. But perhaps they filed their nails because they were bored. Have you asked yourself whether you gave them enough work to do? Maybe they tried to chat to you because you were so prickly and they were trying to cheer you up. Their bad telephone manner could have just been insecurity. They probably hated being here as much as you hated having them here.’
He had shoved a whole pile of books aside and had perched on the edge of the desk, his long cord-clad legs spread in front of him. Poppy had to concentrate very hard not to stare at his awful tie.
‘Do go on,’ he murmured. ‘This is fascinating.’
She glanced at him suspiciously. Was he being sarcastic? But what the hell? She’d finish what she was going to say now.
‘You obviously don’t like having a secretary,’ she offered, ‘being reliant on someone else—and so you treat them badly; and everyone knows that if you treat people badly then they behave badly!’
The eyebrows retreated still further into a lock of the light brown hair. ‘Do they, indeed?’
She couldn’t believe he could be so stupid! ‘Of course they do!’ she declared. ‘If you kick a dog, then the dog becomes bad-tempered and aggressive and neurotic. If you mistreat a child it won’t develop normally, and pu-punitive punishments handed out to juvenile delinquents are far more likely to have a bad effect—than involvement and hard work.’
‘Punitive, hm? That’s a good word, Miss Henderson,’ he remarked.
‘I read it in a newspaper last week,’ she told him proudly, before returning his gaze mulishly. Was he making fun of her?
The long legs had shifted slightly. ‘I trust that you’re not comparing yourself to a dog, or a child, or a juvenile delinquent? How old are you, by the way?’
She really couldn’t see the point of prolonging this interview. ‘Twenty.’
A brief smile. He should do that more often, she thought.
‘Well, you nearly qualified, didn’t you?’ he remarked.
‘What for?’
‘The juvenile part, naturally,’ and he began to laugh.
‘Very funny!’ The surprising thing was that she didn’t feel any awe about talking to him so frankly. She still couldn’t believe that he was really a doctor, to her he seemed more like some overgrown schoolboy, and one who had had his own way for far too long.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘How old do you think I am?’
Poppy sighed. ‘If you knew how many times I’d heard that! I’d say you were about thirty.’
‘Excellent! You’re a year out—I’m thirty-one.’
‘I’m good on ages,’ she said smugly, remembering the countless times that crêpe-lined faces had been thrust over the counter towards her at Maxwells with a plea for a foundation to hide the blemishes, usually accompanied by the lie that ‘I’m only just forty’.
She blinked after her little reverie to find him tapping one long finger on the side of the desk. He wore no gold band and she found herself wondering whether or not he was married. Pity the poor woman who found herself saddled with Dr Browne!
‘So, Miss Henderson, beneath that marshamallow appearance of yours beats a heart of steel, does it?’
She looked at him indignantly. ‘Marshmallow? What’s that supposed to mean?’
By now he definitely looked as though he was enjoying himself. ‘All that pale, fluffy hair—and all that muck you’ve got plastered around your eyes. And that sticky-looking stuff on your mouth—you look just like a sugar-coated piece of confectionery!’
There was a long pause.
Well. She could tell him what he could do with his typewriter and head for the door. Or could she? Hadn’t Miss Webb told her that this was the only job she had? And Miss Webb was a good friend of her tutor; she had gone to her highly recommended. No other agency would touch her, with such little experience. And she did need the job. She had left Maxwells now, and it might have been boring but at least it had paid very well. How else was she going to find the rent?
She dropped her handbag over the back of the nearest chair with a fluid movement. She needed the job, and he needed a secretary. She would work for the obnoxious man, but she was going to take Miss Webb’s advice literally—and damn the consequences!
She gave him the benefit of a sweetly innocent smile. ‘If I look like a sugar-coated piece of confectionery, Dr Browne, then your shirt looks like the crumpled-up bit of wrapper from it! And now, if we’ve finished our little chat, perhaps we could get on with some work?’
He opened his mouth, and shut it again. How wonderful to see him looking so nonplussed!
‘You’ll have to do it without me,’ he said carelessly. ‘I’m off to a meeting now. Perhaps you’d like to tidy up a bit?’
The way he said it suggested that she was little more than a skivvy, and Poppy gritted her teeth, but said nothing.
‘I’ll be in early Monday morning, so I’ll show you the ropes then. That is, if you’re coming back on Monday?’
Put like that, it sounded like a challenge. There was nothing more she would have liked than to have told him she was never going to set foot in his dark, untidy mausoleum of an office again, but she was not going to give him that pleasure. That was what was known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Dr Browne,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be back.’
She bent over her handbag as if she’d found something tremendously important in it, and didn’t look at him once as he strode out of the room.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_fefaefc7-2626-57b5-a109-56e7695f76bb)
AFTER he had disappeared, Poppy heaved a huge sigh of relief and sat back in one of the chairs to survey the contents of his office more closely. Thank heavens she had worn her leggings! There was dust everywhere—generated, no doubt, by the heaps of books. She picked up the book he had been reading and regarded it with interest. It was entitled Diagnostic Dermatology and was indeed written by the man for whom she now worked.
The book was new, the dust cover shiny, and the whole volume had that delicious smell which all new books have. Poppy loved books. She lived for them. And books had taught her almost everything she knew. When you’d missed chunks of your education because teachers would never stay in the remote part of the country you’d grown up in, you quickly realised that there was a lot of catching up to do!
On the inside of the dust cover there was a short piece about the author. It told her that Fergus C. Browne—she wondered idly what the ‘C’ stood for—had been educated at Cambridge and then at King’s College Hospital. That, as well as being one of the youngest consultant dermatologists in the country, he had also written papers on infectious diseases, and the psychological effects of having a chronic skin condition diagnosed.
Poppy frowned. It was a pity he didn’t apply some psychological reasoning to the way he treated his staff—or, better still, use a bit of common sense. What was it going to be like working for such a capricious individual? Were they going to be engaged in running verbal battles all day long? Would he continue to be so incredibly rude about the way she looked?
She gave a long sigh. Better stop being so pensive and get on with the job. She wouldn’t put it past him to come breezing back in here after an hour, just to check what she had accomplished in his absence!
But how to go about tidying up his disgusting den? She didn’t want him accusing her of misplacing all his books, but clearly she couldn’t set up an efficient workplace if she had to keep stepping over haphazardly sited piles.
In the centre of the room was an enormous, old-fashioned fireplace, with a large recess on either side. The two spaces were just crying out for bookshelves. She scrabbled around on his desk and eventually found an unused notepad and Biro, and began to make a list.
In her rather rounded script, she wrote:
1. Have bookshelves erected ASAP!!!
2. Phone library re. most effective way of classifying books.
3. Buy a plant!
The hospital telephonist gave her the number of the maintenance department, and Poppy had to bite back a giggle when she remembered how she’d mistaken the illustrious Dr Browne for one of them. Thank goodness she hadn’t blurted that out!
A bored voice answered the phone and informed her that there was no one in the department who could help at that time, but if she left her number then they would get back to her later that afternoon, and with that Poppy had to be content.
Next she rang the local library and spoke to a very helpful girl there who explained that, as most large libraries were computerised, their systems would be inappropriate for a small, private collection of books. She suggested that alphabetical filing by author would be best, with a cross-reference file for subject matter. She also advised a marker system, in case any of the books were lent out.
While she waited for the maintenance department to ring her back, Poppy sorted all the books out into alphabetical order and placed them in neat groups around the room. It took her over an hour to do this, and by the end of it her mouth felt dry and her clothes were covered in a fine layer of dust. She had long since removed her mohair sweater, and her pink T-shirt proved plenty warm enough. She brushed her hands down the side of her leggings and glanced around. Some order had been restored, at least. She hunted around for something to drink, but found nothing, and since she didn’t want to risk missing the telephone call regarding the bookshelves she did without, but added, ‘Buy a kettle!’ to her list.
At five minutes to five they rang back and she explained her predicament, but not even all her charm could sway the dour-sounding man at the other end, who seemed the worst kind of petty bureaucrat, and obviously relished refusing her request.
‘If we put shelves up for you, then everyone would want them,’ he droned.
‘But we’re not everyone!’ wailed Poppy. ‘And if you don’t tell anyone, we won’t.’
He was now not only impervious to pleading, he was disapproving.
‘We have to work within the system, miss,’ he said sternly. ‘And as for not letting anyone know—I have to complete my work sheets in triplicate, so everyone would know.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ said Poppy crossly. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! Talk about a spirit of co-operation! Thanks for nothing!’
